A wireless network provides for wireless communication among members of the wireless network. Wireless local area networks (WLANs) with ranges of about 100 meters or so have become increasingly popular. Wireless local area networks may employ sophisticated protocols to promote communications. Wireless personal area networks with ranges of about 10 meters are poised for growth, and continued engineering development effort is committed to developing protocols supporting wireless personal area networks.
With limited range, wireless personal area networks may have fewer members and require less power than wireless local area networks. The IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) is developing the IEEE 802.15.3a wireless personal area network standard. The multi-band orthogonal frequency division multiplex (MB-OFDM) system is one possible implementation of the 802.15.3a high data rate physical layer specification. The term piconet refers to a wireless personal area network having an ad hoc topology comprising communicating devices coordinated by a piconet coordinator (PNC). Piconets may form, reform, and abate spontaneously as various wireless devices enter and leave each other's proximity. Piconets may be characterized by their limited temporal and spatial extent. Physically adjacent wireless devices may group themselves into multiple piconets running simultaneously.
The MB-OFDM wireless personal area network standard divides an approximately 7.5 GHz bandwidth from about 3.1 GHz to 10.6 GHz into fourteen approximately 528 MHz wide bands. These fourteen bands are organized into four band groups of three 528 MHz bands each and one band group of two 528 MHz bands. The IEEE 802.15.3a version of this standard is directed to high data rate communications, including transmission rates of 55 mbps to 480 mbps. A piconet may transmit a first orthogonal frequency division multiplex (OFDM) symbol in a first 312.5 nS duration time interval in a first frequency band of a band group, a second OFDM symbol in a second 312.5 nS duration time interval in a second frequency band of the band group, and a third OFDM symbol in a third 312.5 nS duration time interval in a third frequency band of the band group. Other piconets may also transmit concurrently using the same band group, discriminating themselves by using a distinguishing preamble sequence. This method of piconets sharing a band group by transmitting on each of the three 528 MHz wide frequencies of the band group may be referred to as time frequency coding or time frequency interleaving (TFI). Alternately, piconets may transmit exclusively on one frequency band of the band group which may be referred to as fixed frequency interleaving (FFI).